Chocolate Plum Upside Down Cake

Yesterday morning's farmers market yielded a generous $5 pint of what I think are Elephant Heart Plumes. I was trying to decide what to do with this delicious find when I realized that I wanted chocolate. So I hunted for recipes for that involved chocolate and plums. I found this recipe on Simply Recipes and I did some modifications to vegan-ize and chocolate-ize the recipe to my liking.

Here is the result:

This is a terrible photo of a very delicious cake. The upside down part did work very well, it was mostly a chocolate cake with plums and yummy sugary syrup sauce underneath.

Chocolate Plum Upside Down Cake

1 1/4 sticks of soy margarine, softened

1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons brown sugar

1 pint of plums

5 tablespoons of soy milk with 2 teaspoons of lemon juice (vegan buttermilk)

3/4 cup flour

1/4 cup cocoa powder

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 "egg" - I used egg replacer

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

To Do:

Melt 3/4 stick of margarine, add the brown sugar and combine in the bottom of a round baking dish.

Cut and pit the plums, add them to the margarine-sugar mixture cut-side down in the dish.

In a mixing bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cocoa powder.

In a separate bowl, cream together the rest of the margarine, sugar, "egg", and vanilla extract.

Add the "buttermilk" to the creamed sugar mixture and incorporate. Pour wet ingredients into the flour mixture until cake batter is formed.

Pour the cake batter over the plums, which may be thick and therefore have to be spread with the back of a spoon a bit to cover over the plums.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

Notes:

This was freaking delicious. I'm not a baker and I'm sure I erred in trying to prepare this, a more experienced baker (like Biz!) would probably create something even tastier.

Once the cake cooled, the bottom of the cake became very moist as the thick plum syrup sauce got into the cake. I'd suggest making it a day early and letting that syrup sauce seep into the cake before you serve it. A nibble of the cake a day after I made it. Sorry for including another cleavage shot on the website, but this was the best image of the cake I had!

Happy Eating Everyone!

-Robin-